Research

If you have any trouble downloading any of the manuscripts please let me know and I will be happy to send you a copy by mail or e-mail.

I always appreciate comments.

• Book

1. Bednar, Jenna. 2009. The Robust Federation: Principles of Design. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Amazon)
• Reviewed in Publius, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, Law and Politics

• Articles

1. Bednar, Jenna. 2023. "Governance for Human Social Flourishing." Daedalus 152(1):31--45. 
2. Bednar, Jenna and Mariano-Florentino Cuellar. 2022.  "The Fractured Superpower: Federalism is Remaking U.S. Democracy and Foreign Policy." Foreign Affairs Sept/Oct. 
3. Bednar, Jenna. 2021. "Polarization, Diversity, and Democratic Robustness." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences December 14, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113843118
4. Bednar, Jenna. 2019. "Federalism Theory: The Boundary Problem, Robustness, and Dynamics." In John Kincaid, ed., A Research Agenda for Federalism Studies. Edward Elgar. 
5. Liu, Tracy Xiao, Jenna Bednar, Yan Chen, and Scott Page. Forthcoming 2018. “Directional Behavioral Spillover and Cognitive Load Effects in Multiple Repeated Games.” Experimental Economics. DOI linked here
6. Bednar, Jenna. 2018. “Modeling the Institutional Matrix: Norms, Culture, and Robust Design.” in A Research Agenda for New Institutional Economics, Claude Ménard and Mary M. Shirley, eds., Edward Elgar Publishers.
7. Bednar, Jenna and Scott E. Page. 2018. "When Order Affects Performance: Culture, Behavioral Spillovers, and Institutional Path Dependence." American Political Science Review 112(1):82-98.
8. Smaldino, Paul, Marco Janssen, Vicken Hillis, and Jenna Bednar. 2017. "Adoption as a Social Marker: Innovation Diffusion with Outgroup Aversion." Journal of Mathematical Sociology 41(1):26-45.
9. Bednar, Jenna and Scott E. Page. 2016. "Complex Adaptive Systems and Comparative Politics: Modeling the Interaction Between Institutions and Culture." Chinese Political Science Review 1:448-471.
10. Bednar, Jenna. 2016. “Robust Institutional Design: What Makes Some Institutions More Adaptable and Resilient to Changes in the their Environment than Others?”  In Complexity and Evolution: A New Synthesis for Economics, ed. D.S. Wilson and A. Kirman. Strungmann Forum Reports, vol. 19, J. Lupp, editor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
11. Currie, Thomas, Peter Turchin, Jenna Bednar, Peter J. Richerson, Georg Schwesinger, Sven Steinmo, Romain Wacziarg, and John Wallis.  2016. “Evolution of Institutions and Organizations,” In Complexity and Evolution: A New Synthesis for Economics, ed. D.S. Wilson and A. Kirman. Strungmann Forum Reports, vol. 19, J. Lupp, editor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
12. Bednar, Jenna, Andrea Jones-Rooy, and Scott E. Page. 2015. “Choosing a Future based on the Past: Institutions, Behavior, and Path Dependence.” European Journal of Political Economy 40(B):312-322.
13. Bednar, Jenna. 2015. "The Resilience of the American Federal System." In Oxford Handbook of the United States Constitution, Mark Tushnet, Sanford Levinson, and Mark Graber, eds.
14. Bednar, Jenna and Srinivas Parinandi. 2014. "Comparative Politics of Federalism." Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, ed. Sandy Maisel. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
15. Bednar, Jenna. 2014. "Subsidiarity and Robustness: Building the Adaptive Efficiency of Federal Systems." NOMOS: American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, eds James E. Fleming and Jacob Levy. New York: NYU Press.
16. Bednar, Jenna. 2013. "Constitutional Change in Federations: The Role of Complementary Institutions". in Arthur Benz and Jorg Broschek, eds., Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change, and the Varieties of Federalism, Oxford University Press, pp. 277-296.
17. Bednar, Jenna. 2012. "Constitutional Systems Theory: A Research Agenda." Tulsa Law Review 48(2):325-337.
18. Bednar, Jenna. 2012. "Prosociality, Federalism, and Cultural Evolution." Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History 3(1):81-93.
19. Bednar, Jenna, Scott E Page, and Jameson Toole. 2012. "Revised-Path Dependence." Political Analysis 20(2):146-156.
20. Bednar, Jenna, Yan Chen, Tracy Xiao Liu, and Scott E. Page. 2012. "Behavioral Spillovers and Cognitive Load in Multiple Games: An Experimental Study." Games and Economic Behavior 74(1):12-31.
21. Bednar, Jenna. 2011. "The Political Science of Federalism." Annual Review of Law and Social Science 7(1): 269-288.
22. Bednar, Jenna. 2011. "Nudging Federalism Toward Productive Experimentation." Regional and Federal Studies 21(4):503-521.
23. Bednar, Jenna, Aaron Bramson, Andrea Jones-Rooy, and Scott E. Page. 2010. "Emergent Cultural Signatures and Persistent Diversity: A Model of Conformity and Consistency." Rationality and Society 22(4):407-44.
24. Bednar, Jenna. 2010. "The Dialogic Theory of Judicial Review: A New Social Science Research Agenda."George Washington Law Review 78(5):1178-1190.
25. Bednar, Jenna. 2007. "Valuing Exit Options." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 37(2): 190-208.
26. Bednar, Jenna. 2007. "Credit Assignment and Federal Encroachment."Supreme Court Economic Review, Vol. 15:285-308.
27. Bednar, Jenna and Scott E. Page. 2007. "Can Game(s) Theory Explain Culture? The Emergence of Cultural Behavior within Multiple Games". Rationality and Society, 19(1):65-97.
28. Bednar, Jenna. 2006. "Is Full Compliance Possible? Conditions for Shirking with Imperfect Monitoring and Continuous Action Spaces" Journal of Theoretical Politics 18(3):345-373.
29. Bednar, Jenna. 2005. "Federalism as a Public Good." Constitutional Political Economy 16(2):189-205.
30. Bednar, Jenna. 2004. "Judicial Predictability and Federal Stability: Strategic Consequences of Institutional Imperfection." Journal of Theoretical Politics 16(4):423-446.
31. Bednar, Jenna. 2003. "The Madisonian Scheme to Control the National Government." James Madison: The Theory and Practice of Republican Government, ed. Samuel Kernell. Stanford University Press, pp. 217-242. (version from May 2002)
32. Bednar, Jenna, William N. Eskridge, Jr., and John Ferejohn. 2001. "A Political Theory of Federalism." Constitutional Culture and Democratic Rule, ed. John Ferejohn, Jack N. Rakove, and Jonathan Riley. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 223-270.
    Reprinted in: John Kincaid, ed. Federalism. London: SAGE Publications, 2011.
    
33. Bednar, Jenna, John Ferejohn, and Geoff Garrett. 1996. "The Politics of European Federalism." International Review of Law and Economics 16: 279-95.
    Reprinted in: Dieter Schmidtchen and Robert Cooter, eds., Constitutional Law and Economics of the European Union. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1997.
    Reprinted in: Lewis F. Powell, ed. Economics of European Union Law.   Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007.
34. Bednar, Jenna, and William N. Eskridge, Jr. 1995. "Steadying the Court's ‘Unsteady Path': A Theory of Judicial Enforcement of Federalism." Southern California Law Review 68:1447-1491.

• Reviews and Shorter Essays

1.  Bednar, Jenna. 2020. "Of course Trump's authority isn't `total.' Here are 3 myths about how federalism works." Washington Post, April 17, 2020. 
2. "Complexity Economists" (aka Beinhocker, Eric, W. Brian Arthur, Robert Axtell, Jenna Bednar, Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, David Colander, Molly Crockett, J. Doyne Farmer, Ricardo Hausmann, Cars Hommes, Alan Kirman, Scott Page, and David Sloan Wilson.) 2019. "Economics after Neoliberalism: Economics Needs to Embrace a Transdisciplinary Approach." Boston Review, March 19, 2019.
               -Media mention: The Economist, "Simple Interactions can have Unpredictable Consequences," (April 4, 2019).
3. Bednar, Jenna. 2016. "U.S. Term Limits v Thornton". American Governance, Schecter, Vontz, Birkland, Graber, Lutz, and Patrick, eds. Macmillan Reference USA / Cengage Learning.
4. Bednar, Jenna. 2013. ``Who Opposed the Affordable Care Act?’’ in Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, Margaret Weir, and Caroline Tolbert, We the People: An Introduction to American Politics, 9th Edition.  New York: W.W. Norton.
5. Bednar, Jenna. 2012. “Analyzing the Evidence: Federalism and Health Care Reform in the United States.” in Lowi, Ginsberg, Shepsle, and Ansolabehere, American Government: Power and Purpose, 12th edition. New York: W.W. Norton.
6. Bednar, Jenna. 2008. "An Identity-Based Theory of Federalism (Response to Rubin and Feeley)". Publius: The Journal of Federalism 38(2):197-201.
7. Bednar, Jenna. 2008. Review of Daniel Ziblatt, Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism. Perspectives on Politics 6(1)199-200.
8. Bednar, Jenna. 2004. "Authority Migration in Federations: A Framework for Analysis." PS: Political Science & Politics July pp. 403-408.
9. Bednar, Jenna. 2000. "Formal Theories of Federalism." Newsletter of the APSA Comparative Politics section.

• Manuscripts Circulating or Under Review

1. "Governance for Human Flourishing"  (shorter version in preparation for Daedalus, 2023)
2. The Interplay Between Institutions and Civic Capacity: The Paradox of Democratic Collapse, with Scott E. Page.     
3. "The Influence of Economic Geography on Individual Campaign Contributions." (in revision) With Elisabeth R. Gerber.
4. "Federalism in Flux: Three Candidate Models to Explain Federal Dynamics." Presented at the conference "Federalism in Flux", University of Wisconsin Law School, November 2013 and IPSA, Montreal, July 2014; in revision.
5. "The Value of Secession in Constitutional Evolution." (in revision)
• Projects Afoot

1.  How Collaboration Arises and Why it Fails.  Strungmann Forum, May 2022.
2. Open source book on Institutional Dynamics; Pete Richerson, Jenna Bednar, Tom Currie, Sergey Gavrilets, and John Wallis, eds. Expected late 2022.  
3. The problem of surplus in common pool resource management: the Great Lakes, Ogallala, and Colorado River systems. Project incubating with Drew Gronewold, Jon Allan, Kyle Whyte, and Scott Steinschneider.  
4. Federalism as a Mechanism for Collective Problem Solving: How States Improve National Policymaking.
5. Coordination Externalities in River Basins. with Joe Klaver.
6. "The Argentine Federal Intervention: Explaining its Use and Effect." with Gisela Sin.
7. "Compliance within Complementary Institutions." Currently under revision; for an application to federalism, see Chapter 6 of the book.

• Archives, or Whatever happened to that paper you gave at...

1. "Shirking and Stability in Federal Systems," aka "Federalism: Unstable By Design". See Chapter 3 of The Robust Federation manuscript, posted above. For a much more developed general model, present in nascent form in the original paper, see ``Is Full Compliance Possible?'' JTP 2006, posted above.
2. "Federalism, Judicial Independence, and the Power of Precedent." February 2001. Essay prepared for Conference "Judicial Independence at the Crossroads," University of Pennsylvania Law School, March 2001. (abstract)
3. "Modeling the Law (With the Hope of Defining It)." September 2005. Essay written for conference on modeling the law at NYU Law School, October 28-29, 2005.
   

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file updated March 30, 2023